It was supposed to be a routine closing shift. Once at Sip N Read, the little bookstore in the corner of Old City Philadelphia, River had been doing it a hundred times. She cleaned off counters, refilled racks, and heard through a muffled voice a local newscaster on the radio informing people about potential unexpected storms. However, when the TV switched to Penn’s Landing and the skies over the river bent in an unnatural way River sensitivity went off loud enough to siren off the thunder.
There was something wrong with the rain. It was secluded, living and nearly conscious. Then the lights went dim, the streetlamps were switched off, and we could not miss the post-silence at all.
That was when they came.
Two strangers emerged from the shadows. Dressed in sleek black suits and silent as death, they weren’t here to rob her. They were here to erase her. The reasons didn’t matter, not in that moment. What mattered was survival.
River fled, beating fast as the rain on the roofs. She lashed out, gathering up every scrap of strength, every street lesson, every instinct she had ever felt sure of. And then, when all showed that it must be the end, suddenly help came.
They looked like men, but their eyes told a different story. They didn’t speak much. They didn’t need to. They knew who she was before she had a clue herself.
And they had come to take her home.
River was not just a girl from the Towers. She was not just the daughter of a tired mailroom supervisor and a faceless father lost in time. She was the child of two worlds. A daughter of land and sea. A missing heir. A threat to a queen.
The storm wasn’t weather. It was a signal. A shift. The start of something that had waited beneath the tides for nearly two decades. As lightning cracked the sky and water funneled from the heavens, Arcaccia moved.
This hidden underwater kingdom, ruled by King Armen, had kept its secrets buried. But secrets never stay quiet forever. And River was the storm’s epicenter.
Dragged from familiarity and thrust into the ocean depths, River found herself breathing water, her vision adjusting to an entirely new world. Her body responded to the call of her lineage. Her blood remembered what her mind could not. Gills opened on her neck. Her eyes shifted, black and ancient. She was becoming something that she never heard she could become.
Beneath the surface, cities glowed. Coral palaces spiraled toward moonlight. But as beautiful as Arcaccia was, it was built on layers of deception. And someone wanted her gone before she could discover the truth of who she was.
The queen knew the truth. She had always known. River was born before her son, Addam. Which meant River was first in line. The real heir. That truth threatened the balance of power. It threatened everything Celestria had built her life around.
Assassins had failed. Now, time was running out. River wasn’t just running from danger anymore. She was running toward answers. Toward destiny. Toward a kingdom that both needed her and feared her.
What River thought was the worst night of her life turned out to be her beginning. The storm wasn’t the end. It was a doorway. A test. And the waves that rose with it weren’t meant to drown her. They were meant to carry her home.
Below the Tides is a sweeping tale of identity, danger, and discovery. The moment River stepped into the rain, her world split open. The truth was buried, but not forgotten. And now that it has found her, the real storm is yet to come.
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